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Spotlight on Optics

Highlighted Articles from OSA Journals

July 2009

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Detailed electromagnetic simulation for the structural color of butterfly wings

Many species of butterflies exhibit interesting optical phenomena due to the presence of subwavelength quasi-periodic ridge structures in their wings. In this elegant work, the fully three-dimensional, periodic finite-difference time-domain method is used to create a detailed electromagnetic model for this structural color, and a novel method for presenting the three-dimensional observed color pattern is developed.

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Detailed electromagnetic simulation for the structural color of butterfly wings